- Celona's CEO said Nokia and Ericsson are Celona's primary competitors in private cellular
- He claims that entering the Saudi market has been an important hedge for Celona
- RedCap, security and AI will be important tech themes for private networks, he added
Private network startup Celona is making inroads with large enterprises across the globe as they tackle cellular connectivity projects. And CEO Rajeev Shah had some very interesting things to say about what companies it is - and isn't - seeing out on the playing field.
“When we run into large enterprise organizations, which we do at a very rapid rate these days, I see Nokia in almost every account, I see Ericsson in maybe one-in-five, typically we don’t see anyone else," Shah said in a wide-ranging conversation with Fierce. "We don’t see [Samsung] for sure in the U.S., Europe or even Saudi for that matter. Obviously, we see them in Korea and Japan.”
Shah's comments chime in with what analyst firm Dell’Oro Group has said about the private networking situation. Dell’Oro noted that outside of China, Nokia is the main vendor, followed by Ericsson and then Samsung.
Despite the geopolitical issues in the world at the moment, “growth by expanding into international markets, if anything, has become even more important,” Shah claimed.
Shah pointed to Saudi Arabia as a good example of that, calling it a "great market" to have entered last year. That market is "growing very rapidly," he added. That's a good thing, especially when growth in some other markets has gone a bit sift, Shah said.
Healthcare goes private
So, who are some of the customers that are latching onto the private network game?
According to Shah, healthcare is a big one and a new addition to its vertical markets. In the U.S., Celona has been helped in this area thanks to the neutral host agreement Celona has with T-Mobile and AT&T. The company's recent deal with Stanford Health Care is a prime example of this momentum.
"That has led to a lot of interest from healthcare, [which] has traditionally struggled with providing cellular coverage for all their stakeholders,” Shah said.
The CEO noted that European healthcare companies are also interested in Celona, despite the firm having no neutral host system for Europe.
“There is a very strong interest in private networks in healthcare...almost as a hybrid network with Wi-Fi,” the CEO noted, adding that healthcare firms are adding private networks as an overlay for mission-critical communications.
Private networks: What’s coming?
Shah tells us that he doesn’t think that 5G-Advanced or any other major technology changes will affect the private 5G market over the next year. However, he does think there are technology trends worth following over the next 12 months.
Take Reduced Capability (RedCap) 5G, for instance. Shah said RedCap has the potential to reduce the costs of 5G-enabled IoT devices. Indeed, the CEO hopes that RedCap will enable “more of the IoT and sensor population” to be equipped with 5G.
"It’s one we’re watching pretty closely,” he said. “We’ve started seeing early devices, we’re hoping to make them available through partners in the second half of this year.”
The hitch? Shah said that he didn’t know exactly when RedCap devices will become commonplace, as only the TCL LINKPORT IK511 device from T-Mobile is currently the only available RedCap unit available in the United States.
Shah thinks AI will clearly be a technology that Celona and rivals will monitor over the next few years. “Obviously no surprises with the amount of development happening in general in AI,” Shah said.
Then there's security. Celona announced its Aerloc security solution in November, bringing zero trust to its private wireless suite. Shah said security will continue to be key in mission-critical environments as always.
“We will continue to announce enhancements and partnerships in this area over the year," he concluded.